Yet another "IA party composition thread!", Come one, come all Options

[Marceror]

Hi all, I’ve not been around for a while, but have wanted to give IA 5.0 a go for sometime now. Between all the economic turmoil going on in the USA, buying my first home for my family, and a few other things going on this year, I’ve barely had time to breath, much less play computer games. It appears that some of that’s going to be slowing down a little, and so I took the opportunity to get BG2 ?#8220; IA 5 installed on my new PC last night.

Half the fun of the game is coming up with that “perfect party” and I think I’ve come up with a pretty good one this time. I’m open to comments and suggested improvements.

--Berserker (Minsc) - Long Sword & Shield
--Vagrant (Protagonist) - Flail & Axe?
--Stalker (Valygar) - Katana & Hammer
--DC Fighter7/Cleric (Anomen) - Flail & Shield
--MC Fighter/Mage/Cleric (Jaheira) - Mace & Shield or Staff
--Thief/Mage (Nalia) - Short Sword & Buckler +3 (I will take the liberty of redistributing her skill points to meet my trap finding and disarming needs.

I really feel like I’ve got it all with this party. Allow me to count the ways:

Warriors -- I have 3 pure warriors, and because one is Valygar and the other is a Vagrant protagonist, I will have access to some powerful items and abilities. Rangers are gods in IA, so I might as well go with it! I love Minsc as a Berserker, and my goal will be to eventually procure the Judgment Day sword for him (though I’m not convinced that I’ll be up for that battle again… I did it in IA 4.2, and it was a bitch). Also, Anomen is an extremely solid primary cleric (especially when he becomes Sir Anomen), and he grows into a very solid warrior in his own right. With those 4, I will have a powerful core of melee and tanking ability, of which you literally can’t have too much in IA.

Healers -- I already talked about Anomen as my primary healer. Next up is Jaheira, who I’m making an exception by allowing a pretty far stretch in changing her classes, making her a triple class fighter/mage/cleric. While she won’t be great at any one thing, with a F/M/C, I gain with one party slot my backup mage, my backup healer, and a passable warrior (did I mention that you can’t have too much warrior power in IA? Oh, that’s right, I did. But it’s worth a second mention. ). For roleplaying purposes, I will explain that all of her magic is granted by the power of nature, and because she will have so much of it at her disposal, it will show just how dedicated to nature she really is. I will allow her shape changing ability to remain (which I never use anyway) as a nod to her still being somewhat druidic (admittedly, I’m allowing my D&D 3.x mentality to let me be a little more free with such definitions).

Mages -- Lastly, I will have Nalia, who will fill the completely essential role of primary arcane caster, with sufficient thieving ability to get by. Nalia is an arcane casting queen in IA with that fancy upgraded ring and all of the best mage items going to her. She won’t have a ton of hit points, but she will eventually have one of the better AC scores in the party (based on my last run through with her in 4.2), and of course, her spells give her plenty of great defensive capabilities. I’ve already mentioned that I’ll have Jaheira as a backup mage. In this capacity she will be used mostly as a debuffer of enemies and buffer of party members.

Scouts -- Nalia will be my only true rogue type character, and she’s not great at it, but with her skill points redistributed she will do fine at finding and disarming traps. I won’t bother much, if at all, with hiding and laying traps and such. I’ve toyed with the idea of making her a Swashbuckler, and perhaps adding an additional level or two of that class before dualing her to mage, but I’m leaning against the option currently. Of course, I’ll have Valygar to assist with the more slippery tasks, where I need to get by without being seen. Valygar and Nalia ought to make a good team when it comes to getting through deep, dangerous dungeons.

That’s pretty much the line up. The idea here is to create a party that will have a chance to stay alive, and with 3 pure warriors and a cleric who also does pretty well in the role, I will have a solid wall of tanking ability. Neither Jaheira nor Nalia will be particularly frail either, so all in all, it’s a pretty tough 6 man group. Having all the major roles covered, a backup for each, and a fairly hardy party, ought to put me in a pretty good position going in. Of course, I have no illusions that I still won’t be having my ass handed to me regularly, but oh well, it is Improved Anvil, after all!!

This post has been edited by Marceror: Jul 24 2008, 11:59 PM

[lroumen]

I really needed a second mage to buff or debuff. One was barely enough because s/he tends to get disabled herself with silence, emotion, stun and such, so that's my main suggestion for you. I think the rest should do fine.

A good IA setup is more or less:
- 3-4 tanking characters (could be warriors or characters that soak up the hits whilst being protected (bards, F/Ms, etc).
- 1 main mage and 1 backup mage
- 1-2 healer types... probably more like 1 + 1 support


I intended a similar party setup as to yours except I ended up with two alternatives.
1. I took Cernd instead of Valygar (support healer). I think that I would take Valygar in IAv6 because he would be a good fighter but also a nice healer support.
2. I took Imoen instead of Minsc (second sorceress).
3. I started with a Vagrant but didn't like the playing style, so I restarted with a Riskbreaker, but he was defensively too weak. Then I didn't have enough time for playing anymore.



I'm going to start a new v5 game so I'll share my party setup. There are several things that I would like to see in the game. Firstly the judgement day battle and secondly I would like to try out an evil sidekick using some of the evil stuff in the game (Grandfather of the Assassins, Improved Human Flesh, Blackrazor). I know v6 likely improves the paladin stronghold but that doesn't matter to me so I'll probably take a paladin as main character.

Planned party:
1. Paladin: Fighter and support healing. quarterstaves, two-handed swords, halberds
2. Evil assassin: Second "fighter". clubs, short swords, long swords, basically anything
3. Mazzy: third fighter. short sword, long sword, mace or flail?... I will probably lower her bow proficiencies
4. Imoen: main mage, mostly debuffing and damage spells, staves, darts
5. Jan (T/M), Edwin (M), Nalia (T->M): support debuffer and area disabling spells, cross/bow
6. Anomen: main healer, backline fighter, warhammer, mace, flail

[Marceror]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'm a good ways into chapter 3 with this party, and they haven't let me down yet.

I really needed a second mage to buff or debuff. One was barely enough because s/he tends to get disabled herself with silence, emotion, stun and such, so that's my main suggestion for you. I think the rest should do fine.

Actually I do have a backup mage (that was a main reason I was so pleased with this party; I have a backup everything). In this case, it's Jaheira as a fighter/mage/cleric. I'm guessing you saw that I had Jaheira, and didn't notice that I had performed some "surgery" on her. Serves me right for writing such long winded posts. No one in their right mind would actually bother to read the full content!

This post has been edited by Marceror: Jul 27 2008, 08:06 PM